life's for the living
by The Star Room
Summary: Clint Barton is dying. Side wound and a shot to the head: pretty nasty stuff. It isn't the worst he's experienced, but it's enough to do the trick. Now if only Nat were close by ...


So he was dying. _Okay_. It was a lot like living, really - everything looked and smelled about the same. He was still breathing, could still feel his fingers wiggle in his gloves. There was still blood chugging through his veins.

Except, of course, that said blood was promptly spilling out onto the floor and staining an expensive-looking oriental rug.

Side wound; pretty nasty. Wouldn't recommend it. He'd give it a 3/10 (it gets bonus points for being badass).

Still, though, it wasn't a bad way to go out. He'd be leaving the world a fighter, an Avenger, trying to stop yet another alien invasion. It could be a lot worse: He'd almost died once choking on a donut. This, at least, was a bit more professional.

Although, it _was_ getting hard to breathe now. He could taste that awful rusted metal sensation in his mouth. Running his tongue across his teeth didn't help: there was a gaping hole where his two front ones should have been. That last sucker punch from the alien with the pincer-eyes must have knocked them out. Oh good, so he was gonna look like a toddler when he died. _Fabulous._

But death wasn't so bad, really. There wasn't a ton of noise, and Clint appreciated that. His heart beat was a lot louder (it seemed ready to swallow the universe), but the background noises were softened: weird alien growling, the sound of Cap's shield hitting steel, grunts from Thor and bigger grunts from Hulk. There was a peaceful humming coming from his right temple, like his brain was singing him to sleep. A nap sounded nice. Clint could use a nap.

_Close your eyes. _

_(It's almost over.)_

Man, things were getting quiet. Had his hearing aids fallen out? He tried to fumble with them, tried to lift his fingers to his head, but found he couldn't find his hand and couldn't feel it either. Damn. That was probably problematic.

But, honestly, pssh - death was a _breeze_. Everything was slowly becoming gorgeous, like a watercolor painting turned cinematography. Colors were blurring and blending in ways Clint had previously thought impossible. He'd never paid much attention to the beauty of falling unconscious before; now he figured it deserved an exhibit at the Metropolitan. Tony's mask, from thirty feet away, looked like a candle-lit flame. Pietro appeared as a porcelain statue, but with weird pretty-boy hair. Jessica's hair, on the other hand, looked like a really awesome cape - like a Dracula cape. Clint had always wanted a cape, but it got in the way of his arrows.

_Oh._ Arrows. He would miss those in the afterlife. Arrows were, after all, the one thing he was good at. Super good at. The best at. And God probably didn't keep many arrows around.

It struck Clint, then, that he'd just invoked the name of God. And if he was going to meet God shortly, he should probably take a shower, and maybe wear something nicer than his Hawkeye uniform (it was starting to fade). He leaned forward to yell at Tony to take him home so he could grab his tux, but then he remembered he was bleeding on the floor and decided best not worry about it.

_You have heart._

_(Let it go.)_

Wow, death, it - it was slow. There was a lot of time for Clint to second-guess himself. He didn't really _want_ to die, no, but at this point it didn't seem he had a choice. Bleeding out is bleeding out. Natasha had always told him, "If you're gonna get yourself hurt, Clint, try to be smart about it. Break your nose or your pinky toe, not your bow-arm or your neck."

_Natasha. _

Was she near? Somehow she always seemed near, even when she was miles away, in Kiev, in Buxton, in Sydney or Oslo. She was always a comm click away, she always answered his phone calls, she could always jump in a jet and be at his place in a matter of hours. She always seemed close, as if she could whisper from the walls and stain hallways with her presence for decades to come. Sometimes he tasted her, when he woke in the mornings he would swear she'd been beside him only hours ago, her breath still in his system ... he could taste her now, actually, sharp against his tongue, like sugar and machine gun metal and the - but - _oh_.

With shock, he realized the taste in his mouth was not normal. It was not sweet and soft anymore, but thick and viscous, rotting against his lips. That - that was the taste of blood. In his mouth.

Natasha, she - she didn't taste like - _oh_ - it ... choking. He was choking now. Not breathing. _Great, awesome_. Choking, definitely choking. He could feel his whole torso shudder beneath the weight of his breath. Was this what it felt like to overdose? Barney had almost overdosed once, back during the circus days when cocaine had been relatively easy to come by. Jesus, what a habit.

Barney, Clint's stubborn big brother. He'd blame himself, wouldn't he? If Clint died tonight, Barney would drink himself into a stupor, maybe even go back to crime. He'd certainly give up on the sweet black-haired lady at the deli he'd tried to ask out. Clint didn't want that. Barney needed a real life - maybe the girl was his way out.

_Leave him. _

_(Leave them all.)_

And just like that, Clint was angry (even as the corners of his vision flickered like old fluorescent light bulbs). Dying, a few moments ago, had seemed almost pleasant. _Finally, something easy_. But now it felt like a trick, like some sneaky magician's act that was timed perfectly. It wasn't that it was "unfair" (hell, Clint had tempted Fate enough times to know death was coming for him) but this wasn't the right way! Natasha, she had kissed him the other night! She had been on the verge of telling him something, something important! And Barney, he was eleven months sober! He couldn't handle a death in the family, it'd just bring him back to the bottle!

And Kate! Oh, dear, darling Kate. Perfect Katie. With her wiseass remarks and devil-may-care attitude. With her expert aim and her smirk that reminded him of Bobbi. Who would give Kate a hard time, if he wasn't around? Who would keep her in school? Who would pat her on the back and tell her "good job"?

_Natasha_. He could hear her now, or maybe he was just reading her lips, but she was leaning over him, shouting into his face, her sweat-drenched hair falling into her eyes. She was blurry and beautiful, like a Renaissance painting, and he reached out to touch her but no - his fingers were numb and his toes were numb and his body was cold and his breath was gone, gone, gone like that Phillip Phillips song they played too often at the laundromat.

Clint didn't want to leave her. That was the worst of it. He would be fine, wherever he was going now, whatever afterlife awaited him, but what about _her_? Natasha, with her red hair brightened by summer and the scars down her back fading to silvery wisps. He knew her reactions to loss. She was brisk and brutal and retreated inside herself until she was just a husk, really, a brain that could be easily played with but not easily unlocked. How could he let that happen to her? He had to be here for her; she was so close to feeling good again, to having faith in something other than her own line-of-sight down a gun barrel...

But he was slipping. Clint knew that now.

Natasha's cold hand against his cheek. The feeling of being lifted, levitated, like a weight pulled from the center of his spine. The chug-chug-chug of his blood. It was everywhere, it was _everything_. The flutter of his eyelids. And finally, the kiss from the other night blooming in his memory, as strange and surprising as if it were real, just him and Natasha and all eternity stretched out before them like some vast midnight ocean. Closing his eyes.

Wishing for a little bit longer, knowing he didn't have it.

* * *

><p>Then … well, nothing much happened, to be honest.<p>

Clint found himself standing alone in an unknown space, hands in his pockets. Just waiting. For something, anything.

Waiting in the dark.

Nothing to be seen, heard, or touched. Clint stood alone in an empty room and everything was just _dark_; a dark unlike other darks, this dark so dark it was almost too dark. It didn't seem possible, how dark it was. Ya get me?

Waiting in the dark for a long, long time.

Huh. Uncomfortably long, actually - it was getting a little awkward.

_Uh … you there, God? _Clint tried. _It's me, Clint. Just, uh, checking in. For my stay? Yeah, I'll be here for eternity. My name should be on the list. Hopefully. _

Sitting on a cloud of darkness, just waiting. Wondering. Hoping he hadn't been forgotten, questioning whether he'd come to the wrong place. _Wouldn't be the first time, Clint, you have a bad habit of crashing parties._

Then, slowly – so slowly Clint worried he had officially lost it – colors appeared. Blues, greens, a lavender purple he immediately recognized (his own Hawkeye symbol! Ha!). The images swam before him like a school of fish, materializing into figures and then a whole scene, a tapestry he could step into. It felt kinda weird, if Clint was honest with himself. A little too ironic, a little too coked-up, a little too Quentin Tarantino. Was Uma Thurman around? He wouldn't mind a milkshake right now, his lips were parched.

Then - and here's the crazy part - a chorus of voices. Rising from the ground up, louder and louder. Like a choir, except every voice said something different and he could hear each one individually.

Like this one, it was Kate: _"You think I could borrow your bow for an hour or two? You don't look so hot." _

Then Barney: _"You're always a carnie, brother. You can stop acting like you're not." _

This one was Tony: _"Do you even know what an iPad is, Clint? Can I leave you alone with my equipment, or will you blow up the island of Manhattan?" _

Steve: _"Can I trust you to take care of this? You haven't failed me before, and I'm proud of your work with Kate, but ..." _

Jess: _"Clint, this whole team loves you. But you're a real jackass when you try not to love us back."_

Fury: _"Hawk! That's the first time I've seen you miss a shot in ten years of working with you. You been drinking?"_

And finally, Natasha: _"I know you haven't been sleeping, Clint. Stop trying to act like you're just a screw-up. I know PTSD when I see it." _

Shudders through his back. Little wisps of old memories (his dad winding back to take a punch, Barney spitting into the campfire). _Oh, no, no, no. _Something was wrong. As Clint whipped around desperately, another memory slapped into his brain: a gleaming blue scepter, positioned above his chest.

No, this was not a good place. There was no heaven here. Clint had to have landed in the middle of _Friday the 13__th_, or _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_, or futzing _Edward Scissorhands_, or –

No. Worse than that.

Loki was here, Clint could feel him. In the deep recesses of Clint's mind, Loki had made a home. The trickster god, with his spindly fingers twisting and contorting Clint's brain.

And suddenly the colors were gone, everything went black except for the figure emerging from the shadows, the long hair and pallid skin. Seconds passed and they were standing before one another, and Loki's mouth was moving with the chorus of voices, all the voices of Clint's friends, imitating their laughter and their jokes, becoming them, _changing_ them.

"Don't you take one step closer," Clint snarled. His feet dragged him backwards, trying to find a vantage point, but this was not a war zone. This was a trap. He was alone and weaponless, and besides – arrows could not kill a nightmare. Loki was already only inches away from his face, speaking in Kate's voice, condemning him, ripping him apart, _hating_ him. And the words felt as if they were tangible, for they hit Clint like rocks – one word tore open his cheek, the next scathed his shoulder, a third knocked him off of his feet. And all the while Loki loomed over him, his hands reaching out, closer, closer, to consume his prey.

And Clint realized with a jolt that he was shouting. He was shouting, pounding his fists against a wall that wasn't there, because surely this couldn't be all there was, surely he wouldn't have to live in his worst nightmare for decades, surely Loki had had his fun and it must be over, couldn't he be saved, wasn't there something more than the fear he'd hidden for years, please there must be -

"Clint."

_No. _No, he wouldn't listen. Damn it, he would not give in after all this time. He'd worked too hard.

"Listen to me."

_No._ He was not going to lose his last battle to a creepy snake-skin dude from Asgard who smelled like dust and put waaaay too much product in his hair.

"Hey. Open your eyes."

Like _hell_. Loki was still there, he was still toying with Clint's brain, turning images of laughter into convulsions of pain.

"Come on, I know you can hear me. I put your hearing aids back in. Come on."

"Shut up, you oily fish." Words muttered through Clint's gritted teeth.

"Well. Can't say I've ever heard that one before."

_Huh?_

Clint's eyes flashed open, and the gasp that burst through his chest felt strong enough to break bone. White hot lightning - everything was burning and painful to the touch; he could feel a gaping ache in his side; his throat was raw like he'd swallowed gravel.

"Stay with me. Focus on me, Clint."

"Loki," Clint sputtered. "Loki's here."

"No. Loki is in a cell on Asgard, and he will be for quite some time."

"But-" He looked around, wildly. "Kate?!"

"Is alive. And so are you," said the gentle, stern voice Clint had known since the dawn of time (or maybe it had only been 12 years, everything was so muddled, he couldn't think straight...)

Finally, he focused on her face.

"… Natalie."

A small laugh. "That's one name for me."

"No," he corrected himself. "Natalia."

"That's better."

He blinked at her, feeling the walls ripple around him like undulations in a jacuzzi tub. The pain was receding, a little, maybe, but he still didn't understand ... was he at home? Why was Natasha in his home? Where was Lucky, the dog bowl should be by the fireplace, it...?

"Do you know where you are, Clint?"

He tried to make sense of her face, the little dents in her cheekbones and the green of her eyes. "The helicarrier?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "That was five years ago, when I hit you on the head."

"Cognitive recalibration?"

"That's right."

He tried to look around, but looking away from her face felt like a Herculean trial (too hard, too exhausting). Instead, he focused on her lips. "Where am I then?"

"New York City Memorial Hospital. I tried to get you taken somewhere else, but Cap wouldn't let me."

"Loki killed me," Clint blurted out suddenly. "And Kate too. He killed us."

"No, he didn't," Natasha explained. "We were on an average mission and you took a blow to the head and a shot to the side. Started seeing things, yelling Kate's name, started having flashbacks from the Battle of New York. You lost a lot of blood."

"You saved me," Clint said. This time, he wasn't asking a question.

"I wasn't about to let you die on New Year's Eve," Nat replied. "You owe me a bottle of champagne, remember?"

"You're Spider-Woman," he murmured. "You saved my life."

She looked amused. "Not quite. I'm glad the morphine is kicking in, though."

"You're Scarlet Spider. Spider Lady."

Natasha leaned in close and whispered in his ear, "Try Black Widow, honey. You were on the right track, though."

"Black Widow. I ... knew that."

"I know you did."

Natasha stood up from the chair at his bedside and walked to the window, drawing the curtains. "I want you to get some sleep now," she said, brushing her finger down the Velcro strip so light was blocked from entering the room. "Give those meds some time to work."

Clint watched her quietly, as she poured herself a glass of water and

checked the messages on her phone. She was dressed like she was going somewhere, in a nicely-tailored business suit with her hair clipped back.

The words came out before he could stop them: "You kissed me."

She turned around, her eyebrows raised.

"That night at my apartment. You said you were sorry, and you kissed me. I still don't know why."

"Clint..."

"Do you love me?"

She looked shocked at the suddenness of the question. For the first time in a long time, Clint watched Natasha struggle to find her words.

"You're on morphine," she said finally. "You are drugged out of your mind with a head injury that could have killed you. You won't remember this conversation tomorrow morning. Good night, Clint."

"I don't care," he said, slurring a bit. "Morphine's great. It's like birthdays. I can feel … _nothing_. So tell me the truth."

"No. You need to go to sleep."

"Natalia!" he shouted, loud enough that the doctors outside could hear. But he was fading, quickly. The medicine was pulling him under. There was that darkness at the corner of the room again, threatening to silence him.

"Why am I still alive," he muttered, his tongue already feeling loose. Nat wavered at this, her hand stopping in front of the doorknob.

"Clint..."

"I want to know ... why."

"Because," she said, looking exhausted, even exasperated. She turned away from the door, folding her arms over her chest. "Honestly, Clint? Sometimes I'm convinced you're the only member of our team who's actually a good person. Even Steve, with all his pageantry, has killed more people in the war than you ever have. Even Thor, with all his power, has stolen, lied and betrayed. And Tony, well, hell, I'm still not convinced he isn't the enemy."

Clint clung to her words like they were made of stone, clawing at them, trying to stay above the wave of unconsciousness.

"You're the only one, besides Nick, who saw anything good in me. And even he hasn't trusted me the way you have. Only _you_ wouldn't kill the black-blooded ballerina who knew more Soviet secrets than anyone should be allowed to know. Only you have stuck by the Avengers every single time it's almost disbanded."

"I'm not ... a good person," Clint said, but the words were muffled and his mouth was clay.

"You may not be good, but I don't think anyone's good. You're just the _best_ of us, Clint, and that's all there is to say."

Silence. The waves had pulled him under. Morphine - it was the best and worst of dreams.

"You keep us together, Clint. You're an imbecile if you don't see that."

Floating. Words on a wire. But he wasn't dying, no. Even in the darkness, Clint knew he would live.

And Natasha still speaking, even when she knew the words would disappear in the air:

"Yes. I do. Is that what you want?" she asked. "A declaration? Fine. I've given up all my other secrets. I couldn't let you die, because an eye for an eye, remember? You save my life, I save yours. So yes, Clint, I do.

I love you, damn you."


End file.
